Silverlight 4 out NOW!

[torrentthief]

Windows: http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/2/C/22CABA89-3580-4611-8E0D-56749D2120DF/runtime/Silverlight.exe (5.96mb)

Mac: http://silverlight.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/0/D/E/0DEAFE9C-8451-4497-8F8B-DFF82B729818/Silverlight.dmg (8.72mb)

Silverlight 4.0.50401 is the final build number!

What’s New in Silverlight 4?

New Features for Application Developers

* Comprehensive printing support enabling hardcopy reports and documents as well as a virtual print view, independent of screen content.

* A full set of forms controls with over 60 customizable, styleable components. New controls include RichTextbox with hyperlinks, images and editing and Masked textbox for complex field validation. Enhanced controls include DataGrid with sortable/resizeable columns and copy/paste rows.

* WCF RIA Services introduces enterprise class networking and data access for building n-tier applications including transactions, paging of data, WCF and HTTP enhancements.

* Localization enhancements with Bi-Directional text, Right-to-Left support and complex scripts such as Arabic, Hebrew and 31 new languages including Vietnamese and Indic support.

* The .NET Common Runtime (CLR) now enables the same compiled code to be run on the desktop and Silverlight without change.

* Enhanced databinding support increases flexibility and productivity through data grouping/editing and string formatting within bindings.

* Managed Extensibility Framework supports building large composite applications.

* Exclusive tooling support for Silverlight, new in Visual Studio 2010. Including a full editable design surface, drag & drop data-binding, automatically bound controls, datasource selection, integration with Expression Blend styling resources, Silverlight project support and full IntelliSense.

Developer tools

* Fully editable design surface for drawing out controls and layouts.

* Rich property grid and new editors for values

* Drag and drop support for databinding and automatically creating bound controls such as listbox, datagrid. New datasources window and picker.

* Easy to pick styles and resources to make a good looking application based on designer resources built in Expression Blend.

* Built in project support for Silverlight applications

* Editor with full intellisense for XAML and C# and VB languages.

Empowering richer, more interactive experiences

Silverlight is already in use as a comprehensive platform for building rich experiences both for application and pure media scenarios including HD quality, interactive video through Smooth Streaming. Silverlight 4 introduces additional capabilities to enable creation of ever more rich, appealing high-performance interactive experiences and innovative media experiences:

* Fluid interface enhancements advance application usability through animation effects.

* Webcam and microphone to allow sharing of video and audio for instance for chat or customer service applications.

* Audio and video local recording capabilities capture RAW video without requiring server interaction, enabling a wide range of end-user interaction and communication scenarios for example video conferencing.

* Bring data in to your application with features such as copy and paste or drag and drop.

* Long lists can now be scrolled effortlessly with the mouse wheel.

* Support conventional desktop interaction models through new features such as right-click context menu.

* Support for Google’s Chrome browser.

* Performance optimizations mean Silverlight 4 applications start quicker and run 200% faster than the equivalent Silverlight 3 application.

* Multi-touch support enables a range of gestures and touch interactions to be integrated into user experiences.

* Multicast networking, enabling Enterprises to lower the cost of streaming broadcast events such as company meetings and training, interoperating seamlessly with existing Windows Media Server streaming infrastructure.

* Content protection for H.264 media through Silverlight DRM powered by PlayReady.

* Output protection for audio/video streams allowing content owners or distributors to ensure protected content is only viewed through a secure video connection.

Move beyond the browser

Silverlight 3 pioneered the delivery of a new class of Rich Internet Applications to work on the desktop without additional code or runtimes. Silverlight 4 extends this capability:

For Sandboxed applications

* Place HTML within your application enabling much tighter integration with content from web servers such as email, help and reports.

* Provide support for ‘toast’ notification windows, allowing applications to communicate status or change information while the user is working on another application through a popup window on the taskbar.

* Offline DRM, extending the existing Silverlight DRM powered by PlayReady technology to work offline. Protected content can be delivered with a persistent license so that users can go offline immediately and start enjoying their content.

* Control over aspects of UI include window settings such as start position, size and chrome.

For Trusted applications

* Read and write files to the user’s MyDocuments, MyMusic, MyPictures and MyVideos folder (or equivalent for non-windows platforms) for example storage of media files and taking local copies of reports.

* Run other desktop programs such as Office, for example requesting Outlook to send an email, send a report to Word or data to Excel.

* COM automation enables access to devices and other system capabilities by calling into application components; for instance to access a USB security card reader.

* A new user interface for requesting application privileges access outside the standard Silverlight sandbox.

* Group policy objects allow organizations to tailor which applications may have elevated trust.

* Full keyboard support in fullscreen mode richer kiosk and media applications.

* Enhancements to networking allow cross-domain access without a security policy file.

* Custom Window ‘chrome’ to provide a highly branded experience

[still1]

man i just checked 5 min ago and it was not released.... you beat me to it.

thanks for the heads up.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

I wonder if they fixed the bug in time that breaks transparency with out-of-process plugins in Firefox 3.6.4+

It was only found 4-5 days ago or so.

[George P Global Moderator]

Good stuff. Hope MS starts using it more for it's websites. I know the new KIN Studio is silverlight. They should just use it for everything now.

[torrentthief]

all we need now is a 64bit version:) Then IE8 64bit and chrome 64bit (in development) will actually be useful and would pressure adobe to hurry up with flash 10.1 x64.

[HawkMan]

all we need now is a 64bit version:) Then IE8 64bit and chrome 64bit (in development) will actually be useful and would pressure adobe to hurry up with flash 10.1 x64.

Why do we need this ?

[Malisk]

Hmm, I wonder what the status on Mac is as for this.

It's getting more and more interesting for me as a cross-platform development platform.

Edit: Found the Mac dmg package here: http://www.silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight-4/

[Ci7]

thanks for the update

[~Johnny]

Why do we need this ?

Because 32Bit plugins don't work on 64bit browsers?

[torrentthief]

Why do we need this ?

To get some extra speed. Doom9 video guys reckon silverlight would be around 10% faster if a 64bit version was made, also chrome 64bit would be faster, guess we'll have to wait for chrome64 beta to find out how much of an improvement that will bring. Google said it would be out "soon", but that was in August, so i guess it can't be far off now.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Why do we need this ?

It gets rid of the "*32" in the task manager.

[+John. Subscriber¹]

It gets rid of the "*32" in the task manager.

:laugh:.

Just got this for my Mac. Thanks for the update!

[HawkMan]

Because 32Bit plugins don't work on 64bit browsers?

aaaaand... we need them because ?

you know except for the getting rid of the *32 thing int he task manager The-Decryptor mentioned :)

what purpose do you "think" a 64 bit browser woudl serve ? it's not exactly like the features demonstrated in the CS5 launch, your browser doesn't need to precache for editing unlimited seconds of raw HD video :p

[ajua]

It gets rid of the "*32" in the task manager.

:laugh:

[lalalawawawa]

Any info about when it will come to WU?

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

What sites actually use Silverlight? :(

ITV used to use it and it was awesome, much better quality than flash, then they switched back to flash...

Really wish you could watch youtube with silverlight or something. I want to install it but I just don't know anything that uses it :laugh:

[Omen1393]

Well, there is a showcase

Most notably:

Olympics

Bing Maps

Netflix

Also, there is a Facebook out of the browser Silverlight client that utilizes Silverlight 4

http://www.silverlight.net/content/samples/apps/facebookclient/sfcquickinstall.aspx

[crazzyyfool]

I wish more sites would adopt Silverlight to. For me, it is far superior to Flash (as in no stupid CPU load or browser crashing) and in some cases HTML5.

[torrentthief]

I think sites will start moving to silverlight and html5 now as silverlight has a much higher adoption rate than it did when ITV used it. I wish iplayer moved to silverlight too, its jerky even on my quadcore pc with 20mb connection.

[qdave]

Very cool. Updating now.

[George P Global Moderator]

Just updated from SL3 to SL4. Good stuff. I hope it gets used way more as well.

[~Johnny]

Also, there is a Facebook out of the browser Silverlight client that utilizes Silverlight 4

http://www.silverlight.net/content/samples/apps/facebookclient/sfcquickinstall.aspx

Damn, that thing performs far better than the original version did :rofl:

Still, I wish Microsoft would add a lot of these new feature they're doing for Silverlight into WPF too, heck at the rate they're going Silverlight will probably start being a better choice than WPF for people who want to create highly graphical interactive user interfaces =/

[.Neo]

Because 32Bit plugins don't work on 64bit browsers?

Safari 64-bit on Mac OS X Snow Leopard works just fine with 32-bit plugins.

[Petvas]

I wish more sites would adopt Silverlight to. For me, it is far superior to Flash (as in no stupid CPU load or browser crashing) and in some cases HTML5.

+1

[jakem1]

Any news on when the final set of Silverlight 4 Developer Tools will be released? The only thing on Microsoft's site is the RC2 version.